The Story of the Vampire, L (Completed | Featured )

Part 5 - Pretend for a Moment

I would eventually read it as punishment to be sent back north to school, but it wouldn't be for a few more years. In the meantime I worked on materials sent to us by the state, and as I grew older, began to spend more time indoors watching our new television. 

For me, the novelty wore off quickly, but Leis liked it especially, and I watched television with him on many an evening when I would rather have been reading or writing letters. "Troubling himself," Leis told me, one evening, taking me away from my desk.

"Troubling who? Me?" I asked, as he fought my protesting fingers by lacing his own with mine. He would sometimes show me rare and spontaneous affection.

"He is troubling himself and he is writing," he said, pinching my fingers between his so I couldn't escape. "Always he is writing. He is hurting his eyes."

In the interests of being honest, I will say that I often wrote letters to Laurent and to Dasius to avoid troubling myself. Writing letters gave me something to think about, and the complexity of saying what I wanted to say in just the right words took my mind off of my own body. Maintaining a policy against self-abuse had become staggeringly difficult, and at that age, thirteen, I had got the notion that chastity was noble. Leis, knowing my mind, had sometimes offered to teach me the rosary so that I could count mysteries and focus on God. I had rather take up the pen than the cross, myself.

As I grew older, Leis began to take better interest in me. I think he felt sorry for me, because after Laurent left that fall, staying only a few days, Quinn kept his own peace. For a time, my father barely spoke at all. Leis had taken me aside one day and told me, "Your father has a special ability. Sometimes, he is going mad, but it is ok. He is special because he is being better soon, and not all madmen are doing that. We will be very right to stay alone, until he is coming back to himself. Ok?" I had said ok. I think Leis was as lonely as I felt. In that year, and for a couple more years, he barely went anywhere. I discovered also that he couldn't read in English, and not in French well, and I felt that it would be terribly lonely not to read, because then truly there is nowhere to visit but one's own mind. And so the television.

He had also begun taking me out, of his own volition or on someone else's advice I don't know, and so he would drive me into town in the evening to go grocery shopping or to visit the library. He didn't like to be looked at by anyone, and so he often stayed in the car alone, which he insisted didn't bother him. At first I wondered if it looked strange in town that a twelve year old boy would be doing the shopping, but I quickly learned that the world was far bigger than me even in our relatively small place. I found it far superior to do my own shopping than to have groceries delivered. It allowed the possibility of chocolate ice cream above all things, which more than anything I still miss the most. 

So he had laced his fingers in mine, and I could do nothing to resist him. 

"Tell me what you are writing," he said, "Jackie."

"Nothing. I want to get my ice cream out of the icebox and we'll turn on the television."

"He says 'nothing'. It's rude. If you eat too much ice cream you are growing too fat, je dis ca, je dis rien."

"I'll have just a little and I'll meet you on the couch in two minutes. Just let go of me."

"Tell me what you wrote and I am agreeing," he said, working his fingers more securely into mine.

"I will tell you what I wrote in two minutes on the couch. Alright?"

"Oui, ca marche," Yes that works, he said, and let go of me.

Between us, things were still somewhat awkward, and I thought that he wanted to touch me but didn't know how. Even at that age, it endeared him to me a little that he seemed not to know how to avoid offending me, and that he worried about it. Why should anyone worry about bothering me? I remained completely unaware of how I must have smelled to him, that he could smell my blood, and my fear the way that a wolf smells prey, that he could even smell it when I despaired. As a child, I had worshiped Leis for his hair and his long fingers, and even for his aloofness. Now, at thirteen, neither of us felt certain how to relate to the other. Father I could kiss even on the lips, but Leis remained a taboo.